By Brandon Lueken

All across the campus, you see them, those hungry students. They gather in our office, they lurk in the cafeteria. They peek through the doors of events, asking if the potluck or speaker is open to the public. They are students on campus between classes, international students, running start students, homeless students, and students living in shelters. These students do not match the stereotype of the ‘hungry college student’ subsisting of ramen and multivitamins alone.

The students at Bellevue College, like all community colleges, have seen their expenses rise over the past 10 years. Quarterly tuition and fees at a community college with a standard 15 credit load costs $4,000 a year, per the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. There are also book costs, which means expensive textbooks for those Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors we eagerly push out. Textbooks can cost upwards of $150 per class, and with three different classes, that can add a hefty $450 in books alone. Transportation becomes another issue. Bus passes can run $90 a month, and quarters run three months. The lowest cost educational option available to students, the reliable community college system, may soon outpace student’s ability to pay.

Even now, students struggle to earn their way through college at a community college before taking out loans when they transfer for a four-year university. With all of these fixed costs, necessities for attending school, students begin to skimp on what the rest of our society considers the basics: food, rent and utilities.

For the past three years students, staff and faculty at Bellevue College have been fighting student hunger on many fronts. Students formed a garden club, planted a garden, and freely give fresh produce away to members and other needy students. Every fall, the campus has orchestrated a food drive to donate hundreds of pounds of food to St. Andrews Lutheran Church food bank across the street from the college, which feeds the community including Bellevue College students.

Students and administration have investigated methods to accept EBT benefits on campus. The cafeteria piloted a program in Fall 2013 and Winter 2014 to sponsor one meal a day for those with Washington SNAP cards. The funds to support this program ran dry after two quarters, and the college has also explored legislative means of dealing with hunger. With support from other community colleges, Bellevue College is leading the charge to ask for legislation allowing for all public higher education institutions for exemptions to the existing EBT policies to accept SNAP benefits in our cafeteria.

Bellevue College may have changed its name, but the college certainly did not abandon its community. We serve the most at-risk students, those whose situations are most fragile and tenuous, for whom a two-year degree can take four years to complete. We are, and will continue to serve the most basic needs of our students: the hungry body and the hungry mind.

Brandon Lueken is program coordinator, student programs, at Bellevue College.